The Nightmares of Their Final Days
by PurpleZombieAttack
Summary: The BAU is brought in to investigate a series of stalkings, murders, and arsons... all of them connected. The real problem arrives when a member of the team catches the interest of one of the UnSubs.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This is my first fanfiction, so I hope you enjoy it! Whether or not there is a pairing depends on your exact definition of 'pairing', I suppose. Let's just say it involves stalking. Don't worry; I don't portray it as perfectly acceptable. Even I have my own standards of evil. At any rate, read, review and I hope you enjoy it! Constructive criticism is always welcome. The rating may or may not change to M later on.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters. The only things I own here are this specific story's plot, UnSubs and witnesses.**

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The woman terrified him. Her presence had been an oppressive shadow over him for the past month, at least. What did she want? As a successful businessman, albeit with some admittedly questionable business practices, he didn't think he was likely to become the victim of anything, let alone stalking. He had a wife and two children; they needed him, right? He couldn't have imagined what this stranger would want; if it was money, she probably would have simply taken it instead of watching him.

He had originally noticed that he had been followed a while ago. Several times, he had gone to the police only to be told that nothing could be done unless someone was actually harmed. Even after he had started to receive those threatening letters, they had seemed to disappear before he could have used them as evidence. He had yet to tell his wife and sons; they would only have worried about him, possibly unnecessarily. Yet was it really unnecessary? He had heard those recent rumors; people would report feeling as though they were being watched, only to later have their houses burned down and be found dead in their homes. Was this connected? He certainly hoped not, but he felt as though his fears would soon be confirmed as he walked home from a late night at work.

He shook his head, pulling his dark grey raincoat shut as he kept walking. It had rained that morning on his way to work, but it was now merely cloudy with a slight chill in the air. He wasn't sure whether the shudder that wracked his body was from that slight cold or his fear; all he knew was that he was still being watched from the shadows, probably even followed. Right now, everywhere he turned, it was like he saw her; she was always obscured by the shadows, but he could usually see a bit of red hair that seemed relatively short in the front, a white trench coat and a black gas mask that further obscured her face by covering the bottom of it. She always seemed so calm… too damn calm! It was as though she was used to doing things like this, used to terrorizing people. Maybe it even amused her.

Shaking those thoughts from his head, he made his way back to his home. It was a cream-colored house with three stories, most likely some historical remnant that remained from the Victorian era, or at the very least an excellent replica as far as design went. He merely assumed it was the first due to the fact that it was in the more historical housing district in town. The front lawn was immaculately cut and green, even in the early spring. At the moment, the windows were dark. He had, after all, suggested that his wife and sons go on a nice little trip. He had said that he was too busy to go with them but, in reality, he had thought they would have been safer if they were away from him.

When he opened the door, something else seemed off. It took him a few moments to realize; he was positive that he had locked the door before he had left the house for work that morning like he always did. Yet it was unlocked now. What was going on? He didn't know, but he felt his heart pounding. He clenched and unclenched his fists a few times in fear, looking around.

"Hello?" He called out only to get no answer and laughed a bit at himself. Of course nobody else was there! The only other person with a key was his wife, and she was on vacation! "Victor Richardson, you really are getting jumpy in your age, aren't you?" Right, that must have been it; he had merely forgotten to lock the door that day.

Victor turned on the light to the entrance foyer and started walking toward the kitchen. A long day's work always left him hungry, so he was more than glad to be able to make some dinner for himself. Yet, as he passed the door to his bedroom, he heard the creaking of an opening door behind him. Just that simple sound made him freeze. Was that his imagination, or actually his bedroom door opening? When he heard the sound of a footstep behind him, he turned around slowly. What he saw was a man who was most likely in his early twenties with slightly tousled, light brown hair and eyes of the same color. The light seemed to reflect off of his red-rimmed glasses in such a manner as to make him appear menacing despite the polite smile on his face. He had pale skin, as though he didn't really leave his house very often, and wore an outfit that could easily have been described as 'business casual' with more of an emphasis on casual judging by the fact that the top button wasn't done up and the tie was loosened. How had he gotten in here?

"Who are you?" Victor demanded, looking at him. Upon seeing that the man didn't appear to be armed, he had gained a bit of courage. "Moreover, how the hell did you get in here?"

The other male seemed unperturbed by the questions, yet mildly hesitant to answer the question of who it was. "Since you asked so politely," he began in a tone that betrayed no sarcasm but with words that just had to be a way of chiding him on his manners that had actually been rather (understandably) poor, "My name is irrelevant, yet don't doubt that I am glad to finally come face-to-face with you, Mr. Richardson. My associate has told me many things about you. As for how I got in, your wife gave me the key. I guess it could be called a parting gift of sorts. Now, would you be so kind as to come with me?"

What bothered Victor the most was the smile that remained on his face as he said all of this. This man… what did he mean? The words didn't quite register with Victor, to be entirely honest. That was probably why he allowed himself to be led back into the room the stranger had just stepped out of, as well as why he hadn't heard the door get locked behind him. It even took him a few moments to notice the black leather apron and scalpel lying on the bed.

"I don't like getting my clothes bloody when I work," the man explained, pulling Victor out of his stupor. "I'm sure you'd understand."

Victor looked over at the other man, who was pulling his longish hair back. Said man then walked over to the bed, pulling the black apron on and pulling his sleeves up his arms. Now was Victor's chance! He ran back at the door, going to open only to realize that it was locked. He looked back at the other man, who was now turning back toward him. He must not have noticed the surgical mask that Frey now had on when he had looked at the bed before. Now that he did, he looked almost like a mad scientist from some poorly written science fiction movie. It was only almost due to the fact that there was nothing laughable about this.

The last words Victor Richardson heard before he started screaming were "Just relax. This will only hurt for a couple of seconds; I promise."

That man had lied. Bleeding to death from a wound in his throat took a few minutes, apparently.

After that, it was a blur. He lay on the ground, bleeding.

He heard the front door open and someone else walk in.

Last of all, after he could no longer scream and before finally dying, he heard a hollow female voice singing something he didn't quite recognize as he felt flames overtake the house.

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**A/N: This completes the prologue to the story! Chapter one is in the works as we speak.**


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first fanfiction, so I hope you enjoy it! Whether or not there is a pairing depends on your exact definition of 'pairing', I suppose. Let's just say it involves stalking. Don't worry; I don't portray it as perfectly acceptable. Even I have my own standards of evil. At any rate, read, review and I hope you enjoy it! Constructive criticism is always welcome. The rating may or may not change to M later on.**

**In this chapter, after a rather mind-screwy prologue, our Behavioral Analysis Unit team appears!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters. The only things I own here are this specific story's plot, UnSubs and witnesses.**

As with the beginning of any case, the members of Aaron Hotchner's Behavioral Analysis team had just met in the briefing room. Consequently, they still had to wait for a few more minutes to actually go over this new case, since Garcia seemed to be late in joining the rest of them. Aside from her, all of the other team members were already there: Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau, Derek Morgan and Alex Blake.

As if on the unspoken cue of everyone else wondering where she was, the colorfully clad technical analyst herself ran into the room, her heels making clicking sounds in rapid secession as she did so. It wasn't exactly normal for her to rush, but she already should have been there in this case.

"I know what you're going to say, and I'm sorry. But this is your lucky moment, my pretties. You're beloved fountain of knowledge has returned," she said before looking at Hotch. Yeah, now was the time to start presenting the case and try not to think too much of the images that would now flash across the large screen at the front of the room. The poor victims, not to mention their families… no matter how long she spent working for the FBI, she never did get used to these things.

Hotch stared at her silently for a moment, wondering again whether or not he really _should_ have her drug-tested some time. Anyway, she had probably been double-checking her computers again, just to make sure everything was running smoothly. Still, it wasn't normal for her to do that right before they were to present another case.

As Hotch turned the screen on to begin presenting the case, he nodded in response to the apology that doubled as a sort of false reassurance. "Just don't let it happen again," he said before turning his attention back to the screen. "Four victims have been found dead in their homes in northwestern New Hampshire and northeastern Vermont. The buildings had been doused with kerosene and set on fire, so it took a while to determine the exact cause of death. There is reason to believe that the cause is exsanguination through a wound in the throat. They seemed to have been cut with some sharp object so that it would just nick the carotid artery so that they would bleed out slowly."

Reid took a sip of his coffee before speaking up. "Normally, just barely missing a major blood vessel would be viewed as a mistake, but in this case, since all of the victims had neck wounds in the same place, it's most likely intentional. So the UnSub most likely has prior knowledge of the human anatomy, possibly with a medical background of some sort. You know, there was one previous serial killer-"

"Reid." Hotch cut off his statement sternly in order to prevent him from going into a full-on ramble again and received the response of Reid shutting his mouth and looking down. Okay, back to presenting the case.

Garcia risked a glance at the screen to make sure she was on topic and almost regretted it afterwards. There were images of each victim's charred remains, next to what were most likely identification photos. "Anyway, the first victim was Edmond Merritt, male, age sixty-two. He has a record of extortion, but managed to pay bail- probably with the stolen money. I guess those guys have it easy. Or not so much, since… yeah, on to the second victim. Nicole Thatcher, female, age twenty-six. She doesn't have a criminal record, but seems to have a thing for bad boys. Her ex-fiancée, Jackson Sorel, was apparently involved in organized crime. She broke off the engagement only when the investigations on him started in hopes that she wouldn't be questioned. Yeah, that was unlikely."

From there, Hotch took over to present the next two victims. "Our third victim is Abel Davison, male, age thirty-one and already a wealthy entrepreneur. He doesn't have a criminal record either. He was, however, having marital problems at the time. She wanted a divorce but he didn't want to pay the alimony or give up custody of their son."

"Not wanting to pay alimony… I know how that is," Rossi muttered under his breath as Hotch continued.

"Finally, we have the fourth victim. His name is Victor Richardson, male, age forty-five. His wife and children were on a vacation when he was killed. Despite his lack of any criminal record, there have been complaints about him, claiming that he has been using illegal or unethical business practices. Of all the victims, there is no real connection to them aside from their deaths and the events leading up to them."

It was Morgan who asked the inevitable question first. "Exactly what were these 'events'?" He figured that everyone else must have wondered the same thing.

"This is where it gets really freaky. Like, 'are you sure it isn't Halloween yet?' freaky," Garcia interjected as the screen changed to show several notes that must have been typed on a computer. "For up to a month before their deaths, each victim reported having a feeling that they were being watched. Their descriptions were really vague, but they all seem to be of the same person- white female, red hair, white coat, gas mask and… that's it. Apparently, they didn't get a good look at her. They also received these notes among several others. Upon analysis, they were revealed to have used the same exact types of ink and paper- also the most commonly used types. It's weird; it's almost like the UnSub knew what he was doing, right from the first murder."

Blake looked at the screen and then to Garcia. "Do you think we could take a look at the notes themselves? We may be able to get some ideas from those. Also, you referred to the UnSub as a 'he', but the victims had reported seeing a woman," she observed.

"That is odd," Reid agreed. "They saw a woman, but the method of murder seems more likely to have been committed by a male suspect. In addition to that, the murders and the fires may have been two different suspects. I mean, killers will sometimes use fires to cover up their murders but our UnSub or UnSubs appear to be experienced enough to realize that setting fire to the entire home would be more likely to draw attention to the crime, especially if the house itself was doused in an accelerator rather than the actual victim."

"So we'd have a killer working in tandem with an arsonist, and possibly even a third suspect?" JJ summarized. "What are the odds of that happening?"

That was a good question. It definitely wasn't common. "It's unusual, but there might not be a third suspect," Reid said. "Didn't the victims say that they had seen the woman wearing a gas mask?"

"It sounds like that would be useful if someone was to set fires, but from what we know most arsonists don't bother with them anyway," added Morgan, leaning back in his chair.

As interesting- and useful- as the precise number of UnSubs was, they had no conclusive evidence that would help narrow it down more specifically as of yet. So now it was time to move on in their discussion. "Alright, so it may be two or three UnSubs. Going from this, if we're going with a killing team, we would typically have a dominant and a submissive partner. As for which one is which, that's something we need to decide on. Even though the lack of a more specific victimology would normally point toward our UnSubs being organized, we have reason to believe that we'll dealing with organized, experienced killers," Hotch said. "At any rate, we'll be able to make more detailed decisions regarding our profile when we're closer to the crime scenes. Wheels up in thirty."

With that statement, Hotchner walked out of the briefing room as the others stood up and started toward the door as well, leaving Garcia in the room to go back and get ready to do her own job as a tech analyst. "Goodbye, my loves!" She called after them, waving. "Be safe."

'Be safe'… such warnings almost always seemed pointless nowadays. She was fully aware of the fact that their job put them at constant risk of danger. That was unquestionable. Overall, she was really just glad that they always came back alive. Just that was lucky in and of itself.

**A/N: I know, it probably wasn't quite as exciting as the previous one. It is nice to have a slight breather though, right? Chapter two is coming up within this week, assuming that school doesn't murder my creativity.**


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